


I Want Answers

by Writer_Gem



Category: Kouhai Club
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Charlotte has PTSD, Charlotte's mum is a bitch, Child Abuse, Cross-Posted on Wattpad, Drug Abuse, Ginger is Charlotte's protector, Heavy Angst, Internal Monologue, Leon is the MVP and wins best dad of the year award, Mental Abuse, Mental Health Issues, Past Child Abuse, Physical Abuse, Poverty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:28:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24753988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writer_Gem/pseuds/Writer_Gem
Summary: Charlotte just wants answers.
Kudos: 1





	I Want Answers

**Author's Note:**

> TWs// Past child abuse (both physical and implied mental) as well as drug and alcohol abuse and mentions of mental health issues, specifically PTSD.

Everything was still and quiet.

The world outside her window was void of life.

No crickets were chirping. No tree branches rattling or clawing at her window.

No nothing.

The window was open yet no breeze was found. The curtains lay limp at the sill. Numb. Desensitized to the outside environment.

Charlotte laid on her back -on her bed- staring a hole into her ceiling. Eyes rimmed red and dry from tiredness. It had just hit the midnight hour and yet sleep had not taken her. It eluded her. She had school tomorrow...

She had tried so hard but nothing worked.

Exercise, her breathing exercises, meditation, different positions. 

Nothing let her escape into the nothingness that was her subconscious. 

She was trapped in the waking world. Tormented by nothing but her own thoughts and mind. Her brain navigated and passed from one idea to the next. Never stopping. Always moving. Keeping her alert and wide awake.

Part of her wondered if she was suffering sleep paralysis. Her limbs felt like they were filled with lead. Tired. Heavy. Dead. 

...

No...

No, no this was just...

This was normal.

She had been here before. Countless times.

And it was because of her.

It was always because of her.

Charlotte had laid awake so many sleepless nights pondering the same few questions. Questions she never got to ask. Questions she wanted to ask. Questions she knew would never be given an answer.

Why did you hurt me?

What did I do wrong?

Did you ever love me?

Is it because dad left us?

Was I just your punching bag?

Did I ever mean something to you?

Charlotte just wanted answers.

She wanted an explanation for the hell she went through. She wanted to know the reasons why her mother fell of the deep end. 

Was she the reason? Was she the reason her mother turned to the false euphoria that only drugs and alcohol could give her?

Did...

Did she make her mother hate her life?

She was just a child back then...

She just wanted a mother that cared for her. A father that was there. A home where the grass was a happy bright green and the fences were pure white. 

No. No, she did not just want. She needed those. She needed those growing up.

Yet she found herself growing up in poverty. With a substance addicted mother who found a new boyfriend each week and a father who wanted nothing to do with the woman he knocked up and the child he sired.

She was alone. Walking on eggshells and sneaking morsels of food. Not uttering a word because she valued being alive. Living the most important stages of her life and development in silence. 

Survival was her only option growing up. Survival and not being seen.

She had grown out of the former mindset.

Nowadays she still felt invisible.

Once a 'weird quiet kid' always the 'weird quiet kid'.

Life got lonely quickly when you were a nobody. You would of thought she would of gotten use to it by now.

Her brain was a fickle thing. Even she could not understand it.

But that is the thing with mental illness, it distorts and warps the mind. Depression and anxiety were a plague. They were incurable, she had to live and cope with them both.

She had to live and cope with a lot of baggage.

Life was...better now. She had a father -unrelated by blood- who adored her. She had siblings who made her laugh and smile. She had a home where the grass was a healthy green and the fences were a pretty shade of black. Heck, she also had three cats.

There was always enough food so she never went hungry. Her bed was soft and warm and kept the frost at bay during winter. Her clothes actually fit her. 

Yet...-and yet...she still thought about her.

Her mother was miles away. Miles across the Pacific Ocean, back in Canada. In Vancouver. In a jail cell. Charged with drug abuse, selling of illegal substances and child neglect and abuse.

She is where she belongs, Charlotte thought. She can't hurt me anymore.

...

Scratch that. She could still hurt her. Mentally and psychologically.

The doctors called it post-traumatic stress. They said it was due to the emotional and mental trauma her young mind had experienced during her time with her mother. She could still remember the utter heart break on her adoptive father's face. She could still see the resolution in his eyes. She still remembered the warm hug he gave her afterwards, on that warm summers day with a cold cup of ice cream melting away in her hands, and how he promised he would never let anything happen to her again. 

And he kept that promise.

He knew he could never cure her but he could chase away her demons. He could sing away her night terrors with the quiet strums of his guitar. He could listen to her and hold her close to his heart as she wept over a heartless woman. On her worst days he would buy her favorite dessert and cook her favorite meal, make her feel special even when she felt worthless.

The slice of mud cake sat uneaten on her bed side table.

Leon was the best father Charlotte could ever ask for and she felt guilty for making him put up with her, despite all the times he told her 'you are my world, Little Rosie, you are my daughter and I love you'.

Charlotte did not know how she would ever be able to repay her father for all he had done for her. He had given her a second chance of living. Of having a happy life.

It pained her more with how selfish she felt. She had everything a girl could want and yet she still managed to feel as though she was still back there. Back on the unfriendly streets of downtown, east side Vancouver. Back in the cramped and rundown apartment complex where the air was illegal and toxic and suffocating. There, one wrong move or one word spoken out of line got her a hands smacked or her hair pulled or her head shoved into the wall or her hands stepped on.

When she closed her eyes she could still see her mother staring down on her. Eyes half lidded and an angry, dazed look on her face. Sunken cheeks and yellow teeth. She could still smell the alcohol on her breath. She could still feel the cigarettes burned into her skin. Smoldering. Scalding. Scarring. Charlotte could still hear the drunken, intoxicated insults thrown at her even when she was not in the room. 

Even when she had done nothing her mother despised her.

Charlotte blinked. A ginger tail swept across her face and a slight weight placed itself on her abdomen. She squinted through her glossy vision and met the eyes of one of her three cats, Ginger. He stared back at her. He rested his chin on her chest and a soft purr rumbled out.

Slowly, Charlotte rested her hand on the back of his head. Her fingers rubbed slow circles into his soft, short fur as his purring increased in volume. 

Charlotte barely registered the dampness of her cheeks or the stinging of her eyes. The heaviness of her eyelids. The pain in her chest.

With her free hand she reached for her phone on her bed side table, next to the forgotten cake slice. She stared numbly at her phone that told her it was past one in the morning. She placed it back down. 

She threw an arm over her wet eyes. She would never get closure. She had to accept the fact that she would never get any answers from her mother. It was time to move on.

It was time to move on and it hurt.

It hurt so much.

...

Maybe she could ask her dad if she could stay home from school tomorrow...


End file.
